


Full-Bodied and Spicy

by theRadioStarr



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: But not explicit, F/M, Food Sex, Gen, New food experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:13:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theRadioStarr/pseuds/theRadioStarr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I asked Tumblr for a ZevxBrosca prompt, and AngelAvenger delivered, asking for the two of them arguing over nug and Antivan delicacies, trying to defend which one is better. </p>
<p>Didn't quite turn out that way, but it does involve nug and Antivan candy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full-Bodied and Spicy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Angelavenger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelavenger/gifts).



“Mi amore,” Zevran trilled, his voice low and a little worried, “what exactly is this? It smells like Oghren’s socks. The _dirty_ ones.”

Natia sighed, reaching up to absently scratch at her Brand while Oghren laughed at the comment and slopped his bowl full.

“Come on, pretty boy, you can’t tell me you ain’t never-”

“Alright, Oghren, you just go eat,” Natia cut him off sternly.

Oghren saluted her with his spoon and ambled away, chuckling to himself about _asschabs_ again. Natia shook her head; she never understood the higher castes. They thought _Dusters_ were crazy? Apparently they didn’t know what they looked like to the rest of the world. Maybe it was the Stone that did it to them?

Well, if that was true, and coming to the surface meant losing touch with the Stone, then she was _glad_ to be under the open sky. At least the Warden taint gave her a better excuse.

Natia worried that the rest of the group wouldn’t eat if she told them what was in the stew. Nug wasn’t exactly considered a delicacy outside of Orzammar, but she’d had a rough day, and something about nug stew just always made her feel better, more secure, as if the weight of an entire nation and possibly the _world_ wasn’t weighing down on her short, wide, stout little shoulders. So she had returned to their camp, had Leliana make up some quick, simple game traps for her, and left them out for an hour or so before going to see if she had managed to catch anything.

Two beautiful little handsy mole-rabbits, a few wild herbs, and some pilfered roots later, and they had dinner.

“Just try it, Zev,” Natia told him. “If you don’t like it, well… there are others things you could have for supper.”

Alistair groaned across the large fire, but the two of them were used to it and didn’t respond. “Oho! I’m sure there are,” Zevran answered her, his voice low and musical, making Natia blush. Duncan was the first person who had ever looked at her as something more than a dumb Duster stuck in the Carta, but Zevran was the first person who had made her actually _feel_ like she was more than that. The way he would look at her as if she were the only person in the entire world… She hoped Rica saw that in the eyes of King Harrowmont. Her sister deserved it even more than she did.

Natia realized Zevran had been saying something to her while she was busy daydreaming about him, and she raised her eyebrows and shook her head quickly. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Distracted by my dashing good looks? I quite understand,” he teased her with a wink, and she couldn’t help but laugh. If she were closer to him, she would have reached out and punched him in the arm. If only her arms were as long as Alistair’s… “I said, if I try this stew of yours, then you will have to try something of mine.”

Natia sighed deeply. As a casteless dwarf, you ate what you could get – and what you could get was frequently flavourless scraps from sympathetic kitchen staff, or nug. Nothing more, nothing less, and you never knew how frequently you’d get to eat, either. When she had first come to the surface, she’d had to actually force herself to eat more than one solid meal a day; it was made an even greater challenge by how much _flavour_ everything had. As such, she’d never had a sweet in her life until Zevran pulled one out of a hidden pocket one day and started chewing on it. He offered her a piece, and she had taken it, curious, but learned quickly that she had no taste for such things.

Zevran had decided that very moment that he owed it to her to help her develop a sweet tooth.

“Alright, fine,” she agreed, a little reluctantly. She was doing better with them, after all, though she seemed to only care for expensive candies – a point Zevran took pride in pointing out.

She watched him dip his spoon into his bowl as Morrigan approached the fire to dish herself dinner. He sipped it carefully and chewed slowly before responding.

“A… little flat, amore,” he told her, critically but not unkindly. “A good stew, were she a lady, should be much like you: full-bodied and spicy.” Natia laughed.

“Perhaps ‘twould be better for you two to take such conversation elsewhere? Far away from the rest of us would be preferable,” Morrigan sneered as she straightened up, her bowl full.

“For once, I agree with the Witch,” Alistair chimed in from across the fire. He shared a strange look with Morrigan before she walked away, and Alistair got up to wash out his empty bowl before retiring to his tent.

Zevran finished the rest of his stew in silence. “So what was this?” he asked once he was done.

“Nug,” Natia admitted quietly.

“Ah… no wonder Leliana didn’t wish to eat.”

She was playing with Schmooples across the camp, feeding the little critter leafy vegetables while she munched on old bread. “She made the traps for me. I couldn’t just _not_ let her know.”

“Nugs are common around Orzammar, are they not?”

Natia nodded. “Where I’m from, anyway. The higher castes like Oghren think it’s a delicacy, but it’s all us Brands have to live on. Besides, they breed faster than rabbits – we’re really doing Orzammar a favour.”

“They should name you all Paragons for such a mighty deed!”

Natia laughed again. Ancestors, but she had never laughed so much in her entire life as she had since she met this man who had tried to assassinate her. “The Stone will have to come to life before they name another casteless a Paragon.”

“And yet, your casteless sister is Queen now, no? Perhaps it is not so farfetched,” Zevran answered her. Natia didn’t say anything in return, and after a moment of quiet, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a small candy. “Here-” he held it out to her, but when she reached to take it, he closed his open palm and drew it back, making Natia raise a brow at him. “Do not ask how I procured them.”

“The fact that _you_ procured them tells me it wasn’t legal,” she teased as she took the little sweet from him. “In case you’ve forgotten, I was raised in the _Carta._ Criminal gang? You may have heard of them, they’re a real pain in the ass.”

This time it was Zevran who laughed. “Point taken. It’s a hard candy, one of the ones you tuck in your cheek and enjoy for a while, so don’t chew it if you value your teeth.”

“Good to know,” she replied absently as her thick fingers struggled to unwrap the little paper wrapper it was in. When it finally came free, she popped it into her mouth and used her tongue to hold it to the roof for a moment, until she could taste it.

“What is it?” she asked.

“We call them hard caramel,” Zevran answered. “It is made from sugar, heated exceptionally, and then they cool into the hard candies. You have to shape them while they’re still warm. Candy makers have tougher hands than warriors in Antiva.”

“I can believe that,” Natia muttered in response. She met Zevran’s eyes then, just for a moment, and felt a surge of affection shoot through her, settling in a pool behind her navel and giving her a wicked idea.

Zevran must have seen something change in her expression, because he frowned at her in concern. She smirked at his reaction and got to her feet. “How many more of these do you have?”

“A good number, though I was hoping to make them last,” Zevran responded slowly, suspiciously, as she crossed between him and the fire and started to walk toward her tent. “Why?”

“Well, Zevran, I had an idea I think you’ll like,” Natia told him, her voice dropping a few notes. His eyes went wide, and she turned to walk away again, looking at him over her shoulder. “Care to find out?”

He sat frozen for a moment longer before scrambling to get to his feet and following her, a sly grin stretching the black lines on the side of his face irresistibly. “In that case,” he murmured in her ear seductively, “I’ll be happy to see them gone tonight.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So she gets a Werthers from him. I tried looking into traditional Spanish candy, but the only thing I got was turron, which is more of a sticky bar made from raw honey and usually containing almonds. And since I had a hard candy like Werthers in my head for this whole thing, anyway, I just caved and went with it. 
> 
> This is my first Origins prompt - I loved my Brosca to death, but was never invested in Origins the way I am with Inquisition, so I never thought I'd write anything regarding Origins characters taking place during Origins. Then I signed up for Tumblr and went on a Zevran binge, and, well, got the itch to write something with him. So this is the result! I hope you enjoyed the read.


End file.
